Workbooks have long been used to supplement and enhance education. Typical workbooks include pen and pencil drills in which the child completes a learning activity by writing on a page of the workbook. However, these workbooks are not reusable because the pages of the workbook are unusable after the child writes on them to complete the activity.
Another learning tool is activity kits which include an activity book and activity pieces. These activity kits provide an interactive, hands-on learning environment for the child. Generally, the child completes a learning activity by arranging or selecting appropriate activity pieces from the group of activity pieces in accordance with instructions in the book, using the activity pieces together with printed material or by playing a game with the activity pieces. These activity kits are typically reusable since the pages are not written upon and the activity pieces are not destroyed by the child completing the learning activity.
A challenge for the manufacturers of activity kits is to package the activity pieces with the activity book in such a way to facilitate the unencumbered use of each page of the book. Publishers are plagued by practical problems such as (a) providing a resealable and reusable container for the activity pieces which can be stored conveniently with the book, (b) packaging the activity pieces with the book in such a way to avoid losing print area or otherwise impairing the publisher's design freedom on interior pages and (c) preserving the ability to use each side of each interior page for activities involving activity pieces. The latter problem has been particularly difficult to resolve for permanent containers adhered to the book cover because as the book is opened to interior activity pages, the protruding container distorts the plane of the cover surface, preventing it from lying flat, and tends to render a level surface impossible to obtain. Without a level surface, important and basic activities such as gameboards and puzzles cannot be used effectively.
One example of an activity kit combining a book with activity pieces is The Official Icky Poo Book published by Klutz Press of Palo Alto, Calif. This kit includes a book and activity pieces. The activity pieces are held in a plastic bag which is attached to the book by a cable tie strap secured through a hole punched in the top cover of the book nearest to the book binding. The cable tie cannot be reattached once it is broken to provide access to the bag's contents.
An activity kit entitled Bears! Bears! Bears! published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company of Reading, Mass. includes a spiral bound book with a plastic carrying case on top of, but separate from, the book cover. The carrying case includes activity pieces and is removably secured to an elongated flap bound to the spiral binding. The carrying case comprises a top and bottom hingedly secured together. The bottom includes a ridge which defines a receptacle and a plurality of integrally formed posts formed on an elongated flange which extends from one side of the receptacle. The top comprises an inner edge which mates with the ridge to close the receptacle and a plurality of caps on an elongated flange which mate with the posts. The flap includes a plurality of apertures. In order to secure the package to the book, the posts are inserted through the flap apertures and frictionally secured in the caps, thereby locking the flap between the top flange and the bottom flange. The package can be removed from the flap by removing the posts from the caps and flap apertures.
The activity kit entitled Money Madness, also published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company incorporates the activity piece packaging into the cover of the activity book. The cover essentially comprises a two ply sheet material in which the activity pieces are sealed between the material pieces. The top ply includes a see-through window and the bottom ply includes an opening adjacent to the window. The two plies of material are sealed together around the perimeter of the window to form a pocket substantially coplanar with the cover for holding the activity pieces. Once the activity pieces are placed in the pocket, an adhesive label is applied over the bottom ply opening to seal the pocket shut. To access the activity pieces, the adhesive label must be peeled away and is generally not reusable.
An activity kit entitled Rhyme and Roll Dice published by Judy/Instructo of Parsippany, N.J. includes an activity book having a package for holding activity pieces. The package is attached to the inside back cover of the book and extends up past the front cover through an aperture in each page in the book. The package is resealable and includes a bottom permanently adhered to the inside of the back cover of the book and a top hingedly attached to the bottom. The bottom includes an upstanding portion which frictionally engages the inside wall of a blister formed in the top, thereby holding the top closed onto the bottom. The activity pieces are held inside the blister portion of the package.
While the above-mentioned devices may work for their intended purposes, they all complicate construction of the book, and none of these devices provide a resealable container built into the cover of a book which does not interfere with the pages of the book when opened for use. It is thus apparent that there is a need for an improved means for simply packaging activity pieces with a book in an activity kit.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved means for simply packaging activity pieces with a book in which the packaging is resealable, is connected to the book cover but is removable without damage to the cover and does not interfere with the pages of the book.